The fad then was alternate education. Everywhere the husband and I went, people were discussing how they had put their kid into the newest school in town because really, "our education system is so terrible". Competition was bad news for a three-year-old. The weight of an average school-bag, it was then estimated, was about 10 kilos. Magazine sections posed the query: "Is the next generation going to be one of weight-lifters?"

`New' schools were springing up all over the place, promising that children would learn while they played, if the parents would only cough up so many thousand rupees. A number of our friends fell for this. The husband and I perversely insisted on sending the son to a `regular every-day' school. We wanted him to be ready for the big bad competitive world. The first day of school came and I went with the son, carrying his load of books for him and worrying, Would those chubby little arms be transformed into Yokozuna type muscles overnight? In the afternoon, when I went to collect him, he was whirling the bag around his head. Had the muscles already developed, I wondered. "Ma'am said we were to keep all our books in class," the son explained.

And that was the pattern for the next two years, The only books that came home were the drawing and craft books. Out of the 40 periods the son attended in a week, 22 were of the fun variety. Our friends were frankly disbelieving.

Today, eight years later, the son is competitive and happy. His teachers are happy too because he wins quite a few competitions for the school, including the odd one for which he's too young.

In fact, I am the only person who seems to have been consistently unhappy with the school. If I'd put the son into a regular, every-day school, I expected the school to be regular and every-day. Home after a busy day at work, I did not want to play 20 Questions with him. "Don't you have any homework?" I'd ask wearily, and then remember that the damn school he went to didn't give him any homework. "What kind of school is this anyway?" I'd grumble to the husband. "What are kids meant to do in the evenings if they don't have any homework?"

I began begging the teachers to please, give him anything, even a few pages of writing, to do at home. As a result, I am completely persona non grata at PTAs now, the teachers converse brightly with the husband instead. Then came class 5, and the big event, Exams. Now, I thought happily, the son just had to sit down and get his act together. His class-mates did. One of them had revised the exam syllabus four times a week before the actual exam!

"See!" I told the husband triumphantly. "In our times, they started exams in Nursery, and by class 5, we were immune to exam pressure. But look at the stress these kids are undergoing."

Not so our son. He played happily even on the day before the exam. I warned the husband, "If this child fails, I will not be held responsible."

A month later, we went for the report card. I did my best to beg off, but the husband eyed me sternly in the way I know will brook no denial. In the classroom, the teacher looked up brightly at him, "Abhimanyu has done very well. He's come first in his class, you know."

I passed out.